It’s been a busy last few weeks at the Bullz-Eye offices. As David Medsker mentioned in his recap of the “Hot Tub Time Machine” junket, the BE crew has gone global this month, popping up in Capetown, Belfast, Tahoe, and finally, Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest film festival. This is our first visit to the Lone Star State’s annual event, but already we understand why it’s so popular among fans of music, movies and technology. It’s one giant party, and you don’t even need one of the event’s various badges to participate.

The festival has recently switched over to music mode – with many of the film and tech geeks being replaced by musicians, groupies and indie hipsters – but I’ve been covering the film portion since opening night on our SXSW 2010 Blog. Anyone hoping to catch every movie on their list might be disappointed to discover the way South By schedules their screenings, but while the world premieres of “Kick-Ass” and “MacGruber” have drawn giant crowds, the programmers have done a great job of offering plenty of lower profile movies that are just as good as the star-studded headliners. Take for instance my favorite film of the festival, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s French crime caper, “Micmacs,” a movie that doesn’t have any big names (at least, not in the domestic market), but still earned thunderous laughter and applause when it played at Austin’s historic Paramount theater last Saturday.

It’s exactly this eclecticism in the line-up that makes SXSW one of the more unique film fests in the country. Throw in some great people and even better eats and you’ll wish you were here too. There’s still time to join in the festivities (it runs through March 21st), but if you can’t make it down this year, there’s always next year. It’s something that everyone should experience at least once in their life.